He said: “Our mission when we started Social Bite four-and-a-half years ago was to run a successful business and split 100 per cent of the profits between three different charities.

“It hadn’t been the plan to employ homeless people but a Big Issue seller called Pete stationed himself outside our first shop on Rose Street in Edinburgh and, after a couple of weeks, he plucked up the courage to ask me for a job.

“Pete handed out leaflets for a couple of hours a day and then, when a position opened up, he became a pot washer.

“The experiment worked and Pete recommended his brother Joe. After seeing the difference it made to the lives of Joe and Pete, we set a goal that a quarter of Social Bite’s employees should come from homeless backgrounds.”